UPDATED: Jim Letten’s Leaving

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten will step down from his post at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, sources tell the WDSU I-Team.

The move comes after multiple scandals have hit the office. Two prosecutors who work under Letten, including his former top deputy, posted defamatory comments on a news website under alias names.

Letten’s status has been a major hot potato since the “scandal” surrounding a pair of his assistants who thought it would be a good idea to comment on cases they were working on in the interactive sections of the Times-Picayune stories about those cases. That “scandal” was plenty of nothing, for the most part, other than that Letten didn’t step in to put a stop to it soon enough.

Like virtually everything else in New Orleans, though, the “scandal” is a straw man for other things going on.

More on this after the presser.

UPDATE: The video of his resignation. He says he’s retiring after 28 years at DOJ…